Wednesday, 15 January 2014

The last week
of my placement, I visited museums around Bath.
Through these experiences, I had a better understanding of how museums are managed
in UK.
And the top three illuminating things I learned at the Roman Baths are that their
priorities are visitors’ interests, learning projects, and the interpretation
of the museum:

First of all,
the museum focuses a lot on the public. The principle here is the museum belongs
to everybody. At the Baths there is a meeting every Monday morning to discuss
details of the museum for the past week and coming week. It is said that these
details are the most important thing to ensure a better experience for
visitors. The managers read feedback from visitors and resolve any problems
immediately. This is what we would like to change in China. We used to impose our
interests on the public, giving them exhibitions according to our interests.
Now we try to put our focus on people rather than objects.

A Major Davis Tour at the Roman Baths

Second, the
learning activities are fantastic. They provide various workshops for children from
under 5 to adults. People enjoy getting involved in the museum and the museum gives
them a better life. They also provide workshops for disabled people and for
people who have lost their jobs, helping them to get back into society. This
inspired me to think what we should do in our museum, what we can provide to
the public. Without consideration of audiences, the vitality of a museum could
be lost.

Third and the
most significant thing I learned here, is how to interpret the museum. They use
a range of interpretation techniques, such as panels (text and graphics); audio
guides; human guides; reconstructions; interactives; scale models and so on.
These are aimed to complement each other and provide access to the visitors. This
is what we need to introduce all aspects of museums to more people.

The Roman Baths Children's interpretation manual.

It is so
important for a museum to have its own personality and to be accessible for
everybody. Although there is a different situation and policy in China, we could
not just apply the same or similar management to our museum, but it is
significant to see it in different ways. It brings inspirations and lights my
mind, we could have some positive social, cultural, educational and economic
changes according to the reality of Chinese museum.

At last, I
must express my thanks to everybody I met here. Everyone is so kind and generous
to share, giving me very good memories of the three weeks. Thanks to you all
and I will miss this fabulous autumn in Bath.

The Roman Baths at Night

The Roman Baths Bloggers

We are the volunteers, interns and employees of the Roman Baths. We started this blog to provide you with a behind the scenes glimpse of what goes on here at the Roman Baths. We will be writing about what is interesting and important to us from collections to activities and events.